The Pilgrims of the Damned: A Vampire Thriller, page 4
Miles thought back. “Mid-nineties.”
“Things have changed in the time since you last went,” First Lord Fuller said. “Like I said, there’s a lot of work still to do.”
“That proposal is already passed, I assume,” Miles said, wondering just how bad the state had gotten in the more than three decades since he’d last been there.
“No vote has taken place yet,” Thomas Reed said. “But the backing of House Venator would almost certainly mean it would pass through to the Assembly.”
Miles nodded that he understood.
“We will wait outside,” First Lord Fuller said.
When Lord Fuller and Thomas had left Miles’s home, Drest said, “How much have you been paying attention to the American news over the last month?”
“Nae much,” Miles said. “I mean, a little, but nothing too intensive.”
“You heard about Stuart Murphy?” Charlotte asked.
Miles tried to remember if he knew the name. “Is he from the Magistrate?”
“Possibly,” Amelia said. “We’re not entirely sure, although we do know that he’s ex-military, ex-CIA, worked for a group called Templar International.”
Miles couldn’t have kept the shock from his face if he’d tried. “Seriously?”
“The American branch,” Charlotte said. “They split from the European part of the company shortly after their Assembly accreditation was removed. I’ve been informed that you know about that.”
“A little,” Miles said, not wanting to get into the fact that the Assembly accreditation—given to companies who can offer something to the vampire world—was removed because it turned out they were involved in some pretty shady stuff. Shady stuff that got them and a lot of other people killed. “Can I assume that Stuart was also involved in some pretty… morally ambiguous things?”
“Before Templar, he worked in a black ops CIA-run six-person unit that did protection detail,” Drest said. “But he just happened to be in countries that had uprisings put down, or assassinations of people who may or may not have been about to testify before a government. The coincidences are, frankly, staggering.”
“And you’re investigating him?” Miles asked Amelia. “That’s the real reason you want to go to Maine? That’s probably more dangerous than going to Maine for a bit of a walk.”
“Stuart Murphy was an abusive husband and father, and two years ago, after his family fled from that abuse, he was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer. He was placed on vampire blood medication, which appeared to slow down the disease, although not stop it. What no one knew was that he was looking for a vampire to turn him the whole time.”
“Illegally?” Miles asked. “I assume anyway.”
“No one would,” Amelia said. “I interviewed several people at a vampire club in Boston, and they all said that he’d tried to pay them a lot of money to do it. Kept coming back for about six months, and then he just stopped.”
“So far, so karmic retribution for being an arsehole,” Miles said.
“Then, two weeks ago, he murdered his neighbours, a priest, and everyone in the church at the time. Seven people in all. He used magic to kill them.”
Miles felt his mouth drop open. “Witches are meant to be extinct. Have been for close to a century now.”
Amelia picked up her satchel from the floor beside her, opened it, and removed a black velvet bag that contained an old and well-read book. She passed the bag over to Miles, who read the gold-leaf lettering on the front: Grimoire.
“Bollocks,” he whispered.
“We are not extinct, Mister Watson,” Amelia said staring at him.
Miles looked up from the grimoire at Amelia. “We?”
“I am a witch.”
Miles looked over to Drest and the Justice. “You knew witches weren’t extinct?”
They both nodded.
Miles looked back at the grimoire. “Of course you did. Who did this belong to?”
“A friend of mine,” Amelia said. “Her name was Heather Croft.”
“You speak about her in the past tense?”
“She left her job one night, got into her SUV, and was never seen alive again,” Amelia said. “They found her body hanging from a tree branch three days later. She’d been drowned first. That was eleven days ago.”
“I’m sorry for the loss of your friend,” Miles said. “I assume you think Stuart Murphy is her killer?”
“I do,” Amelia said.
“Why?”
“What do you know about witches, Mister Watson?”
“Miles is fine,” he said. “There are two types,” Miles said, trying to remember everything he knew. It had been a long time since he’d met a witch, and even longer since he’d needed to consider one of them a threat. “Harmony witches are just people who use their magic to better others and the world around them. Chaos witches are the opposite. I assume Stuart falls into the latter category.”
“You would assume correctly,” Amelia said. “You can open the grimoire, it won’t explode.”
“Did you steal this from a crime scene?” Miles asked, opening the velvet bag and gingerly removing the book.
“It was in Heather’s will that it be given to me,” Amelia said. “It was in her safe. I put it in the bag to keep it… well, safe.”
Miles studied the grimoire on his kitchen table. It was mostly words and hand gestures, about how to tap into a magical power. Should you be able to.
“The pages become blank when a witch learns the magic,” Amelia said. “And they refill upon the death of the witch.”
Miles flicked through to the end of the grimoire, where there were pages a slightly different colour from the rest. “The pages make themselves?”
“No, a witch will add new pages when they take possession of the grimoire,” Amelia said.
“So these writings here, this is everything Heather learned during her life?”
Amelia nodded.
“Why would Stuart want your friend dead?”
“Witches police our own,” Amelia said. “When covens—yes, we do actually have covens—get wind of a chaos witch, or any witch willing to hurt others, we find and stop them. Heather had no coven. I guess, I mean, except me, maybe.”
There was a slight stumble in Amelia’s voice that made Miles look up. There was no point in asking if she was okay; it was pretty obvious that she wasn’t.
“What did she do for a living?” Miles asked.
“She was an artist,” Amelia said. “A good one. She wanted to work in comic books.”
“How did she find out about Stuart?”
“Fourteen months ago, a witch was murdered,” Amelia said. “They were attacked in their home, at night. Two bullets to the head, one to the heart. Officially, nothing was taken. Just a senseless attack, but the witch was a friend of Heather’s. Heather took it upon herself to look into it, discovered the grimoire was missing. Started looking into it and was led to Stuart Murphy. Actually, first she found an employee of Templar International, who she thinks did the robbery and murder on the orders of someone else, possibly Stuart. We’re not sure.”
“What happened to the employee?” Miles asked.
“He accidentally shot himself in the head while cleaning his gun,” Amelia said.
“Seriously?” Miles asked.
“It’s officially an accident,” Amelia said.
Miles rolled his eyes. “What makes you think that Stuart has this grimoire?”
“The victims he murdered were all cooked from the inside out,” Amelia said. “I have a friend in the police, let me go to the crime scenes. The amount of magical energy still there made me feel dizzy. He killed his neighbours, a priest, and several members of the congregation. The police have him listed as a person of interest, although with Stuart having fled to Maine, no human cop is going to go rushing off to track him down.”
“Okay, so Stuart is a witch,” Miles said. “A murderous witch. A murderous witch with stage four cancer. I think time is just going to finish the job for us at this rate.”
“I don’t think we can wait around for him to die,” Amelia said. “He’s already killed people. And there’s a possibility that his magic is, at the very least, slowing the advancement of the cancer.”
“Valid point. Do we know for certain that he killed your friend?”
“I don’t know,” Amelia admitted. “What I do know is that Stuart has ties to some seriously dangerous people. That he fled to Maine with a man by the name of Liam White. There’s CCTV footage of them in a car together after Stuart torched the church.”
“And Liam White is?” Miles asked.
“Ex-CIA. Current Templar International,” Amelia said. “I got a friend of mine to call up a contact in the CIA, and when Liam’s name was mentioned my friend was told never to say that name again.”
“Oh, that can’t possibly be good news,” Miles said.
“What we could find out is that he has ties to several Magistrate members.”
Miles considered pouring another drink. “So, Liam and Stuart fled to Maine, but with Liam’s ties to the Magistrate, it’s likely that Liam has a plan. Otherwise, he’s just aiding a known murderer. You’re going into Maine to track down Liam and Stuart, and then what? Photograph them, write a piece about them? What’s the plan here?”
Amelia’s gaze hardened. “I want to find the people who murdered Heather. I want them to see justice.”
Miles looked up at that. “Justice or vengeance?”
“Justice,” Amelia said with conviction. “Stuart Murphy was last seen going into Maine with several others, two weeks ago. They were allowed in by a guard friend at the northern tip of where it meets New Hampshire, the guard was arrested a few days after Heather was found.”
“When was she killed?”
“She was taken the same day that Stuart and his friend fled into Maine,” Amelia said.
“How do they know it was this guard who did it?”
“One of the other guards ratted him out. He set up hidden cameras and had been filming Stuart’s guard friend for several weeks. After Heather’s murder, all of the footage was sent to one of the guard stations in New Hampshire, who had Stuart’s guard friend arrested. They got him taking bribes and found footage of him allowing the driver of Heather’s SUV through the checkpoint. No clue who the driver is, unfortunately. The SUV was found near Heather’s body, burned out. The guard has ties to the Magistrate, and he’s not talking.”
“Why kill Heather?” Miles asked, wondering how long it would take to get the guard to crack. “She’s not really a threat to a bunch of people who used to do what Liam and Stuart did.”
“I don’t know,” Amelia said. “I think she found something out, but I haven’t been able to discover what it is. Heather deserves justice, Miles. And from a witch’s point of view, they murdered one of our own.”
“Stuart’s wife and children?” Miles asked. “They safe?”
“In California,” Amelia said. “They’re all safe.”
“Why aren’t more witches in the area looking into Stuart?” Miles asked. “I assume there are more. I mean, I’ve just learned you’re not actually extinct, so I have no idea of your numbers.”
“There are several thousand witches across North America,” Amelia said. “Most are gardeners and doctors, people whose use of magic is barely noticeable. To answer your question, Heather’s murder has freaked them all out. Witches who have had combat experience aren’t exactly in abundance.”
“Okay, I have a few questions.”
“Sure,” Amelia said, putting the book back in her satchel.
“How do you know where Stuart and his people are? I mean specifically?”
“I think they’re headed toward Brunswick,” Amelia said.
“Why Brunswick?”
“The CIA friend of a friend,” Amelia said. “Said that Brunswick is the epicentre for Magistrate activity in Maine. With Liam’s links to people in the organisation, I think he’s gone there to hide out. The pilgrimage goes close to it; I figure I can head inside and ask around.”
“And I’m there so you don’t get killed in the process, but then what?” Miles asked. “You never gave me a full answer earlier, so what’s the whole plan? You going to be putting their faces all over the papers?”
“Not entirely,” Amelia said. “Stuart has a stolen grimoire; it needs to be found and recovered. It wasn’t his, wasn’t passed down through blood, so his link to it is still breakable. Losing it will not end well for him.”
“You’re going to kill him?”
“I’m going to retrieve what isn’t his,” Amelia said. “And that might kill him.”
“You ever killed someone before?”
“No,” Amelia said, never taking her eyes off Miles.
“Or maybe he meets an unfortunate end?” Miles suggested.
“I won’t let someone else find that grimoire,” Amelia said.
Miles looked from Drest and the Justice back over to Amelia. “So, officially, your plan is to outwardly write a nice piece about the pilgrimage and all it does to help the humans and vampires, while at the same time, you’re only there to retrieve this grimoire from a psychopath? You’re not planning on writing an exposé about Stuart, Liam, or their connections to the Magistrate. That about sum it up?”
Amelia nodded. “There won’t be a story about Stuart. Although if we do find evidence of the Magistrate’s unlawful behaviour, we can pass it on to those who need it. Otherwise, I’d rather the world never knew Stuart existed, never mind what he’s capable of doing.”
“I thought you wanted justice for your friend,” Miles said.
“I do,” Amelia said. “But I also need to ensure that Stuart does nothing to hurt anyone else. That means getting the grimoire back. If that means that justice for my friend is unofficial, then so be it. The witches will know; that will have to be enough.”
“Do we know why Stuart is headed to Maine?” Miles asked. “I get that he’s dying, but he and his friends have burned their old lives to go to a place that is best described as hostile to anyone who doesn’t know their way around. What’s he hoping to achieve?”
“I don’t know,” Amelia admitted again.
“We get to Maine, we go to Bangor with the pilgrimage,” Miles said. “We do nae go straight to Brunswick. We need intel, nae a battle with a witch and a bunch of murderers, and whatever we might find between Bangor and Brunswick. It’s bad enough that House Idolator wants to go to Blue Hill, but they’re vampires, even young ones, and can at least nae die easily. You are, and I mean this without disrespect, squishy by comparison.”
“You’ll do it?” Amelia asked, more than a little hope in her voice.
“Aye,” Miles said. “I’ll take you on your trip, I’ll play bodyguard. Can I assume no one else on this pilgrimage knows about it?”
“It’s between those of us here tonight,” Drest said. “No one else.”
“You got any combat experience?” Miles asked Amelia.
“I once headbutted a man who wouldn’t take no for an answer,” she said, letting the silence hang in the air before she continued. “I did some self-defence classes, got my brown belt in Muay Thai.”
“But any actual fighting experience?” Miles asked. “Apart from the headbutting, which is a nice touch, by the way. Any experience in a combat zone? Of being attacked by people who are trained? Any weapons training?”
“I’ve done some gun range stuff in America, but that’s about it,” Amelia said.
“Right, you wear a bulletproof jacket at all times,” Miles said. “I don’t care if you’re awake or not, you wear it. You will carry a weapon, nae a gun, I don’t want you to shoot at shadows, and guns are going to be useless against desolate or vampires. But a volt baton and heat dagger will do the job. I have both. You are nae to walk away from me, or Church. One of us will be with you at all times. And if we’re nae there, there will be an appropriate person with you who is trained to keep people safe.”
Amelia looked to Drest and Charlotte, who both pointed at Miles as if to say it’s his rules. “Okay,” she said after looking back at Miles.
“If I find out that you’re bullshitting me on any part of this, the agreement is off,” Miles said. “You can’t begin to understand how much you do nae want to be left alone in the middle of some of the parts of Maine. You won’t be making it out of there except in something’s belly.”
“Yes, sir,” Amelia said.
“Miles is fine,” he corrected. “Keeping you alive, and relatively scathe-free, is now my job. So you’re going to make it easy on both of us, by letting me do that job. If it all goes to shit, and I’m incapable of getting you to safety, you stay with Church.”
On cue, Church entered the kitchen. Amelia’s eyes grew wide as the dog went over to say hello.
“Church, Amelia,” Miles said. “You’re her new protector.”
Church stared at Amelia and barked.
“That is a very large dog,” Amelia said slowly, as if speaking at a normal speed might startle Church somehow.
“She’s also smarter than most people,” Miles said. “She understands English perfectly. One bark yes, two no. She barks at you, move. She tries to drag you away somewhere, you go. She can literally crush a man’s skull in her jaws. Trust me when I say that if she wants you to move, do it. Or get a broken arm. At best.”
“Hi, Church,” Amelia said.
The large dog circled around the table, sat in front of Amelia, and gave her one paw, which Amelia shook. Church stood, licked Amelia’s hand, and rested her head on the reporter’s lap for Amelia to stroke.
“She likes you, that’ll help,” Miles said.
“That is very good,” Amelia said, stroking Church, whose tail was moving fast enough to threaten liftoff.
“Right, you two,” Miles said, looking over at Drest and Justice Balderas. “What is it you want that you’re sending me to help a witch?”
“If the Magistrate are taking control of Brunswick, it puts us in a difficult and potentially dangerous position,” Justice Balderas said. “We need to know more. We need to know what they’re playing at. Frankly, it sounds like whatever is going on, Stuart and Liam are involved somewhere, but we don’t know exactly what their involvement is. They wouldn’t have burned their lives for nothing.”
